After having read this article, I could not help but wonder why entrepreneurs would want to put a lot of money into Web 2.0 companies unless these entrepreneurs simply have an insatiable appetite to create a monopoly within the Web 2.0 world, thus preventing others from building web-based empires. Perhaps it is a matter of conquering cyber space, or making a name for oneself, or steering viewers to their companies over others, or getting people hooked (so companies can charge in the [near] future).

Whatever the reason(s), it is a high stakes game, for there is little or no revenue, despite on-line ads (which I, for example, never pay attention to anyways even though they are geared towards me based on my cyber hits).

Overall, I am thankful that there are some reputable Web-based companies that require payment for their services and/or products, for I find them valuable in my teaching profession.

CrowdTrust is more than a Community of Practice (CoP) in that this Web 2.0 company calls for the collective knowledge and wisdom of everyone, not just participants from a single industry or professional arena. Here, industry leaders could utilize the wisdom of the crowd to help explore the various issues and challenges pertaining to urban sustainability in any given community, for example.

CrowdTrust provides space where one’s personal creative commons can become more meaningful and more valuable to you and to others so that things that matter most to an organization, for example, could be explored in a much more cooperative and collaborative manner.

After having viewed the pitch for CrowdTrust, I could not help but think how profitable this venture could be for schools, for example, where the wisdom of the crowd – students, teachers, parents, community stakeholders, administration, and other staff members – could explore and solve various issues, matters, and challenges that inherently exist in any school community.

After all, as with urban issues around sustainability, for instance, school issues around operations and functionality could be deal with by way of collected intelligence, which CrowdTrust secures in its company space.

In sum, in partnership with all stakeholders, I would utilize CrowdTrust in my school because I believe that, through collective knowledge, expertise, information, experiences, and ideas, school issues and matters could be solved much more effectively.